When the Bear Gets You...

Yeah, some days you get the bear, and some days he gets you.  Or you get to ride him.  if you are a goblin!

This Goblin Bear Rider is from Red Box Games.  His base is 50mm, so that gives you an idea of scale.

This was part of that very large forest creature project, filled with goblins, trolls and ogres!

As usual, the base was constructed of tree bark and Oxide Paste.

A Higher Rez

I think the last little step by step that I made of "primer painting" showed a unit of Bolt Action minis, so I thought I would snap some images of a more diverse group.  There are a number of different manufacturers here, ready for some Stynlrez Primer from Badger Airbrush.

As you know, there are already a dozen colors, which means that you really can paint with primer!  I Began in this case with one of the new dark brown primers, which is called Ebony.

It is a very nice Van Dyke Brown shade, which was a great initial layer for these big beastmen figures from Mierce Miniatures.  At this point, I am just looking to cover every surface.

There's even more sitting over here, including some telephone poles that I quickly made for the urban table (there's a how to on those coming as well!)

I prime dozens of figures all at the same time, along with large creatures and even terrain.  Once that all has the first darker layer, I will start to add in some lighter colors and let those 'mix' in the reservoir of the airbrush.  The lighter tone here is the 'Skintone' primer. 

That is allowed to mix in the reservoir with the remaining Ebony primer, and the figures will be primer painted lighter and lighter...

I continued with this process on the Reaper and Red Box Games figures, gradually lightening that mix... but making sure not to wipe out the original darker color in the shadow areas.  Some of the Mierce beastmen are shown in the inset image.

Remember, what I am trying to do here is the replication of my Shaded Basecoat technique on a mass scale.  Since you are going to be making a bit of a mess anyway, why not do a whole bunch of minis at once, instead of just a handful?

I gradually add lighter colors into the mix, such as tan and then ultimately a tiny bit of white primer.  I do not clean out the airbrush at any stage here!  It is important, because allowing the colors to mix and flow from the brush means that you get those smoother transitions of light to dark along the way.

I also have to keep in mind that I sometimes go back into the darker areas with another tone once I have all the lightest colors established.   Sometimes I will do that by mixing in the ghost tints with primer colors.  You still get the benefit of a primer, but now it is tinted in a way that you could not make a primer color...

Here's  that lightest color established on the beastmen.  The bases will have snow on them, just like all the previous figures in this massive army.  So even more lighter colors have been added in those areas.

There are certainly more colors in the primer range than tans and browns!  There are greens and even a blue, which I will use here on a few Mantic figures, which have an obvious under sea theme.  You can see what the slate blue primer looks like on the test spray.

After I put the blue primer layer down, I started to mix in some seafoam green to get a few quick color transitions.  I will be painting glazes over this with the Reaper clear paints to enhance the depth of tone and shades, along with golds and copper NMM which will see the original greens and bues showing through.

That is all a part of the Shaded Basecoat technique, which is setting up the layers of glazing in advance.  Sometimes the glazes are meant to darken and enhance these early layers, which is the case on the beastmen.  Sometimes, however, I will actually put layers of color that are the opposite of what I did during the primer painting phase, using that as an underpainting.

Finally, I added a few spritzes of the slate blue on metal areas, such as the weapons and armor on the beastmen and this Gondor figure.

I will try to do a few step by step articles to show how I take advantage of all this rapid primer painting, so stay tuned for those!

I am also going to start doing the live sessions again, now that we have learned a few things about gaining more control over the camera focus and macro settings!  If you want to see more of that, I have established a patreon page which will create a bit more time for those live action tutorials:

https://www.patreon.com/JamesWappel

Tiny Tiny Tiny

While I forgot to include a coin to show you how small these figures are, I think you can get a sense just by looking at them.  Their bases are not even as large as a penny!

This was definitely a new challenge for me, which is saying something since I have been at this for almost 18 years.  I had done some 10mm historical figures, but that is a different animal.  These are meant to be 28mm scale, so it was very important to keep the scale of the basing and other elements the same as the rest of the army.

These guys are part of a large goblin army, including those massive trolls that you have already seen.  So, I had to take the same bark and branch basing materials (along with the flock and grass), and make tiny versions of those very large bases that I made for the trolls.

The bark is the ideal material for them, but getting pins into those very tiny feet was not easy!  If I had thought of it, I could have used one of my tiny drill bits and used florist wire instead of the usual paper clips.

I thought that particular tip might be useful in case you ever run across the same kind of challenge!  In the past, I have used the smaller bits and florist wire to pin skinny arms onto delicate figures.

Leaping out of the Box

Here's a few more recent Red Box Games Cavalry figures.  

They remind me of the Chaos Marauder mounted figs, but with a little more armor :-)

Having them balanced on one leg such as these can make them a bit of a challenge to base, as the figures are metal.  I ended up putting two pins in the one foot in an effort to prevent spinning.

The snow bases were done to match everything else that has been done for this massive army!

One last peek...

The Great Horde

As the great Winter Horde project enters the final chapters, I thought I might review a few aspects, such as the basing and some "environment" or terrain pieces, which I made along with it.

Here's the first article showing the terrain stands under construction:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-standing-stone.html

Another article showing the painting:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2015/09/winters-coming.html

Some snow effects:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2015/09/let-it-snow.html

A review of some other miniatures which have all been part of this same massive project!

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2015/09/upon-this-rock.html

More from Red Box Games:

http://wappellious.blogspot.com/2015/10/out-in-cold.html

As you can see, these not only make nice backdrop pieces for photos, they are also nice pieces of terrain!  They are similar to a few stands that I made for our Wild West Exodus games.

In any case, these didn't take a lot of time and expense to create, but the decorative element they will add to any game is far greater.  The more believable the setting, the more enjoyable the gaming experience.

The lady in Red

One more female character for you from Red Box Games.  She is yet another figure from the giant batch of winter theme characters which spans a number of miniatures companies.

Whenever possible, I tried to reflect a variety of sky blue colors to swords, armor and shields.  This blue was more saturated than what was used on the 'ground', or snow facings.

All this contrasted well with the deep reds of the tunic and shield.  Here and there the tiniest bit of rust was applied.

Red Dawn

While most of the Red Box Games figures are typically male, there are a few interesting female miniatures that sneak in now and then.

As it's been a little while since I last posted any figures from this project, so a reminder that all the figures with this kind of winter basing are all from the same long term massive project.

This phase of the project is actually drawing to a close, with a few isolated units and characters yet to come.

So, stay tune for more from Red Box Games!!

Skin in the game

I didn't realize how long it's been since I had a Red Box Game miniature on the blog, but this guy should help make up for that!

These may be some of my favorite Red Box minis.

I enjoy these poses, and the way the extra 'stuff' sits on the figures.

The weapons are also in some nice fighting positions as well.

Stay tuned for more of these guys!